Cayenne Peppers and Vanilla
by Circe King
Summary: After Sophie is badly wounded, Billy, now a close friend, volunteers to nurse her back to health. Based ten-plus years after the last book, Sophie is now an immortal. Some fluff, rated T for sexual themes. SophieXBilly
1. Wake Up

**I admit, I do ship Sophie and Billy, despite the fact that they really didn't know each other very well in the books. I just feel like they'd be a really cute couple, and I'd prefer not to get any hate just because I find them adorable.**

Sophie Newman lay curled up on the reddish purple blankets with her long platinum blond hair surrounding her head in a cloud of silver. Her bright blue eyes were closed in sleep.

Bright afternoon sunlight blazed through the shutters covering the two windows above the bed and painted the overlarge, worn white shirt she wore gold. Despite the brightness outside, the winter cold still seeped into the room through the thick walls to nip at her. She woke groggily, dragged the purple-ish blanket over herself and returned to a state of thoughtless bliss.

A spicy scent made her nose twitch and woke her again. She took another wiff, it was warm and spicy, a smell many people would've hated but she didn't mind one bit. In fact, she kind of liked it.

Then she realized where she'd smelled it before.

Sophie bolted up and out of the bed-

-straight into a wall that most definitely wasn't in her room. She twisted around to take the room in, from the lower ceiling to the simple desert-brown walls to the reddish-purple of the bed spread that most definitely did _not _belong to her.

And then there was the matter of the rather bedraggled figure of Billy the Kid passed out on the bed she had been in only a few seconds before. Lacking a shirt.

She collapsed on the ground and held her head in her hands, rocking back and forth whispering "nononononononononononnononon ononononononononono". She smelled the spicy scent again, and despite her knowledge of exactly whose scent it was, she again found herself liking quite a bit.

Sophie shot her feet again and suddenly felt a sharp pain in her left side. She pulled up the shirt (which fell almost to her knees) to find that not only was she still wearing her underwear (which lessened her terror, but not by much) but an angry red slash running from her mid thigh up to her ribs. She nudged it experimentally and hissed at the pain, her hand came back smelling strongly of cayenne peppers.

Suddenly everything came flashing back.

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	2. Flash Backs

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She wanted to go exploring a Shadowrealm near Hekate's old one, which had been badly affected by the Yggdrasil's destruction. Billy had tagged along when he heard Josh wasn't going (he had an irrational fear of her brother for some reason or another). It had started out just fine, if a bit boring. He kept their first few hours of trekking across the scarred, burnt earth lighthearted, making random jokes and truly living up to his title of "the Kid".

Then all of a sudden he became really serious and told her stay quiet. He whipped his head back and forth, as if trying to find something in the barren landscape. Then Sophie heard the loud baying of hounds and he grabbed her hand and they started running.

The dogs were getting closer and she chanced a glimpse behind her and what she saw stopped her dead in her tracks, dragging Billy to a halt as well.

The creature was huge, at least the size of a two-story house, with a wiry body that seemed to be a mix of a lion and a wolf. Its paws left drops of blood in their wake that sizzled when they hit the earth. Long gashes ran down the length of its body and pain and misery seemed to radiate off of it in waves. But the most shocking, and horrifying thing about it were the three massive dog's heads and necks that branched off from its shoulders. One looked blinded, its pupils swallowed up by milky white, and another was missing one of its ears completely. Only the one in the center looked unscathed, until it opened its mouth to bay again, revealing a mouth completely destroyed by what could've only been acid.

Billy had tried to stop her, but Sophie ignored his pleas and made her way towards the enormous, pitiful creature. It stared at her with its four seeing eyes filled with begging, while the head with the blind eyes just whined. Her aura seeped from the pores of her skin and made its way like silver fog and surrounded the middle head and the warm scent of vanilla filled the air as she tried to lessen its pain. The creature made an almost purr-like sound and lay down on the ground, its eyes trained on the seemingly tiny figure before it.

She opened her mind to it carefully and its memories flooded into her mind, of the noxious gas that had suddenly been released when half the Shadowrealm was destroyed along with the Yggdrasil. It took with it most of the creature's food source, huge cow-like animals that moved in herds and ate the grass that used to grow here. The gas had killed off the rest of the plants, and soon the rest of the herbivores followed it. The creature before her had only survived by eating the rotting carcasses, and she could feel the sickness slowly moving through its poor, ravaged body. The central head had been hurt when it had tried drinking from a watering hole, which had been poisoned by the gas and turned acidic. Its blind head was the first to feel the true effects of the gas on its body as it slowly began to shut down, starting with its eyes.

By the time it was done with its story, tears streamed down Sophie's cheeks and fell, hissing against the poisonous ground. She looked back at Billy as if to say "we have to get it out of here". He looked at the creature again with worry, but finally nodded to her.

They positioned themselves on either side of the creature as it watched them. Sophie explained to it what they planned to do and the creature nodded its three colossal heads.

The spicy scent of cayenne peppers met the smell of vanilla and the creature suddenly began to blur around the edges. It stood up and barked, seeing the wide-open spaces of the simple, grassy plain of one of her brother's early attempts at a Shadowrealm. It started running before it totally disappeared, straight for Sophie.

Billy shouted and for a moment everything was colored reddish-purple by his aura, then the next thing she knew, one of the creature's claws had nicked her side just as it passed into the new Shadowrealm.

The rest of it was a blur.

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	3. Fever

**So I'm sure you all hate me by now because it's been forever. I have no explanation. I just have the worst writer's block ever. Reviews!**

Sophie stared at her hands as Billy rushed around the tiny apartment kitchen, throwing together what little he could find in the cupboard and small fridge. He turned on the coffee machine, which was oddly the only relatively new appliance in the entire apartment. In fact the machine was top of the line and looked completely out of place with the cracked linoleum floor and counters that were probably popular in the late sixties. Even the couch she sat on was patched up with duct tape.

"Do you want any coffee?" he called.

"N-no. I'm not even sure I can eat." Her stomach had been reeling since her vision.

"I might have some Sprite somewhere, I hear it helps."

Another bout of nausea hit her all of a sudden and she curled up in a ball to keep herself from dry heaving. She heard Billy digging through the fridge, followed by a lot of cursing. He hurried to the couch and tried to take her hand, but she had both of them pressed against her stomach.

"What-" she gasped and squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds, "the _hell _is happening to me?"

Billy pressed a hand to her head and cursed again, at least Sophie thought it was cursing, she couldn't really be sure. "You're burning up."

She nodded and bit down hard on her lip as pain ripped through her side.

"I think the toxins may have gotten into your system, it should pass eventua-"

She didn't hear the rest of it.

Sophie opened her eyes and once again found herself curled up under the reddish-purple blanket in Billy's bedroom. The spicy scent of cayenne peppers tugged at her attention as she tried to focus on the room that had begun to spin around her. Suddenly the smell overwhelmed her and she fell back under.

"Come on Sophie, you need to eat something," Billy murmured as his voice dragged her from her sleep. She let him pull her into an almost sitting position and pour something warm (soup?) into her mouth. She choked and spluttered for the first few sips but eventually got a few mouthfuls down before she fell back into the darkness.

Sophie didn't normally dream, unlike her brother her sleep was only rarely ruined by nightmares. But her fever-induced dreams ran almost non-stop, even blending into reality when Billy woke her up to get a drink of water or gulp down some more soup.

**Even though I'm a terrible person even I deserve reviews!**


	4. Old Friends

**Still a pretty bad person...still love reviews! And to the guest who asked who I ship Josh with, you shall see...**

Sophie's fever finally broke a few days later, but she still slipped in and out of consciousness for the next two. Billy was exhausted, his aura was pulsing weakly as he tried once again to finish healing the long claw marks on her side. The wounds would definitely scar, but the infection seemed to have died down. Sophie's eyelids fluttered and he paused, she murmured something that sounded like "wash" and fell back into the swirling darkness of her dreams.

Billy settled the covers back over her, even with her fever gone she still shivered slightly when he removed them. He stumbled to his living room and collapsed unceremoniously onto his couch, his head finally met the pillow he'd haphazardly tossed there and he slipped into the deepest sleep he'd had in what seemed like centuries.

A sleep which was ended abruptly when his door smashed open and a very large, very angry Josh stomped into his tiny apartment shouting about wanting to see his sister. Billy tumbled off the couch, bashing his head hard enough against the coffee table to knock over a three-day-old glass of what he thought might be iced tea and several books. He groaned and rubbed the now tender spot near his left eye as the giant ex-football player grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him to his feet.

"What did you do to Sophie?" Josh snapped, his left hand wrapped in Billy's wrinkled button down shirt and his right poised to hit him.

Billy gaped at him like a fish, too surprised to answer coherently, and started spouting random thoughts about large dogs and Sprite.

"Josh?" a strangled voice called from the doorway to Billy's bedroom. Sophie leaned against the door frame with the thick bedspread wrapped around her, her blond hair was a wild mess and she kept blinking her eyes as if trying to clear them. "Put him down, he's done nothing wrong."

Josh glared at him for a split second, but let him drop back onto his own two feet.

"Sophie!" Josh rushed over and wrapped her in a tight embrace, and jumped back when she cried out in pain. Billy took a step forward, his arms out as if to comfort her before the look on her brother's face sent him stumbling back.

Sophie smiled apologetically, "It's nothing really, just a scratch."

"Just a scratch? What did he _do_?"

She rolled her eyes at him, "Billy didn't do anything, Josh. It's my own fault. We were visiting one of the Shadowrealms partially destroyed when the Yggdrasil was killed-"

And once again Billy was facing down an angry brother several inches taller (and wider) than he was. "You brought my sister into something like that?" he growled.

"It wasn't _my _idea!" he snapped back, finally finding the courage to fight back against someone that even the Elders feared unconditionally.

Sophie intervened before Josh could respond, "It was mine. One of the animals was injured, we sent it into one of your early Shadowrealms. He nicked my side on the way out." She let the comforter drop and rolled up her t-shirt to show him the slowly healing scars torn into her side.

"I wouldn't call that a scratch," Josh muttered. But he did finally step away from Billy, who breathed a silent sigh of relief.

Sophie settled carefully on the couch, her cheeks were still flushed from fever but her eyes finally seemed clear. "Tell me about the others, I haven't heard from them in _ages_."

Josh sat down beside her and chattered on about Scathach's newest cause (hunting down the best of fighters from the ancient Africa, a continent that had been largely ignored in early times), Aoife and Niten returning from their honeymoon (slightly bruised and beaten, but they had visited Sparta in the second century BC after all), and finally, after much blushing and muttered responses, about Virginia's return from her own Shadowrealm.

"I thought she'd be there for ages, trying to build a society with no classes." Sophie said, not ignorant to her brother's sudden awkwardness.

"Me too," he admitted, "apparently she...she wants help in building the realm itself."

"So I take it she wants your...special knowledge?" Billy ventured. Josh shot him an annoyed look but nodded, albeit reluctantly.

"I'll be gone for a few months, maybe longer. Civilized Shadowrealms aren't easy to construct, and she insists that it has to be a brand new Shadowrealm."

"Then I won't keep you," Sophie said, standing unsteadily. "Come on, you have work to do."

Josh shot Billy one last warning glance before hugging his sister goodbye. She winced slightly, but didn't cry out this time.

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	5. Too Damn Early

**So I'm sure you're sick of my apologies...but I swear I thought I uploaded this but my computer is evil and didn't do it...but here it is! Now that it's summer I'll have a lot more time to write more. And remember, reviews make me happy and make me write faster!**

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Sophie woke up several hours before dawn, suddenly very warm and very uncomfortable in the big, scarlet bed. She kicked the thick covers off and rolled over to look at the clock. She groaned and buried her face in one of the pillows, but deep down she knew she wasn't going to get back to sleep anytime soon.

She finally rolled out of the bed and set her feet down on the soft shag carpet. Her side still ached, but she pressed her fingertips into the wound until the familiar scent of vanilla filled the air and the pain subsided to an annoying tweak. She tested her legs, and despite several days of disuse they seemed to be in relatively good shape. The ever-present smell of cayenne peppers barely even seemed to register and she knew that, like her vanilla, she wouldn't really notice it until it was gone. Still, the two very different smells mixed to make a sweet, warm scent that calmed her frayed nerves.

The bedroom was just as she remembered it from the first time she'd awoken here, confused and disoriented. In fact the only real difference was the lack of a shirtless Billy, who was asleep on the couch and (hopefully) fully dressed. She glanced down at the worn white shirt she wore and again reminded herself to buy more clothes.

Sophie made her way out of the bedroom into the main room, Billy lay in an uncomfortable position on the couch, one of his too-long legs hung to the ground and one of his arms was flung over the side of the couch while the other pillowed his head. His mouth was wide open and he snored softly, disturbing the edges of the frayed blanket that covered barely half his body. She tip-toed past him into the kitchen and made herself a quick cup of mint tea, then she searched the cupboard for some early breakfast.

She finally ended up eating some sugary cereal (with cowboys on the box, which made her giggle) with some relatively questionable milk. She added groceries to her imaginary list.

She made her way gingerly back to the couch and sat down on the floor by Billy's head. She chewed the cereal as quietly as possible and flipped through an old western novel she found on the coffee table. She noticed several notes in the margins and many of the passages were scratched out with notes saying things like "inaccurate" and "this idiot doesn't know what he's talking about". It was pretty funny actually, and she amused herself for a few minutes just deciphering Billy's horrendous handwriting.

Suddenly the sleeping young man beside her growled and sat up, running scarred, calloused hands through his sandy hair. He glanced at Sophie and blinked several times as if trying to focus.

"What time is it?" he grumbled.

She checked the clock over the stove, "It's about four-thirty."

He snarled and collapsed back on the couch. "It's too damn early."

"I thought pioneers woke up before the crack of dawn every morning."

"I was never one for mornings," his voice was muffled, "why do you think I became an outlaw? Late nights, sleep as long as you want, better money too."

"You don't look much like an outlaw."

"I used to, wore dark chaps, a black cowboy hat, the whole nine yards."

"Nope, can't see it," she swallowed the last bit of her tea, "you're far too..."

"Devilishly handsome?" he cracked a grin at her shocked expression.

"Well I wouldn't say devilishly."

"So you concede that I'm handsome?"

"Never said you weren't." Sophie blushed slightly and took another bite of her now soggy cereal to try to hide it.  
"You're too pretty to wake up so early," he touched her cheek and she swallowed, her big blue eyes huge with confusion. "And this may be the exhaustion talking, but..."

He bent and kissed her full on her slightly open mouth. Then he grinned, flipped back onto his back and promptly fell asleep with an infuriating smirk on his face.

Sophie sat there for a few more seconds, then finally carried her dirty dishes to the sink. Then she slipped into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

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	6. Boomerang

**I am on a roll today! Two chapters in one day, I'm actually pretty proud of myself! But, you guys all know how much I love reviews...**

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Billy woke up both to the sound of the television blaring old (well, this decade's idea of old) cartoons and Sophie plopping down on his legs. Her long blond hair was tied up in a messy bun and stuck through with a pen, a few loose strands brushed her shoulders. He was about to say something about her crushing his legs but settled on making fun of her childish choice in television.

"Boomerang? I didn't even know I had this channel," he grumbled, doing his best impression of a sleep-deprived child.

"Says the boy with cowboys on his cereal box," she said, barely glancing at him.

"Hey! I buy those specifically for the taste, it has nothing to do with cowboys!"  
"Mm-hm. Besides, cartoons are a Saturday morning tradition, childish cereal on the other hand..."

"I prefer the Saturday tradition of sleeping in till noon," he yanked his leg out from under her.

But instead of falling forward or to her right, Sophie tumbled to her left and ended up practically laying on him. They stared at each other, so close that he could see the flecks of silver in her big blue eyes. He could see himself getting lost in those eyes, so deep and blue...

She jumped to her feet. "I- I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have-"

"Shouldn't have what? Fallen? It's not your fault anyway," he felt embarrassed, almost ashamed. They stood in an awkward silence for several seconds, her standing and him half-sitting up with a blanket tangled up in his long legs.

"I..." she bit her bottom lip, and he remembered how soft it had been earlier that morning. When, in a haze of exhaustion he'd kissed her then fell asleep before he could see her reaction. "Are you hungry? I'm sure you have some eggs somewhere. And I don't really eat meat anymore but I think I saw bacon when I was looking for breakfast earlier."

She babbled on, making her way to the kitchen with unsteady steps. He swung his legs off the couch and followed her.

"You might have sausage, but I'm not very good at cooking it. How about pancakes? I think you have mi-"

"Sophie." He was following her.

"You're right, I didn't see any batter and neither of us knows how to make it from scratch-"

"Sophie."

"How about biscuits? I think you have a packet in here somewh-"

"This morning-"

"How about orange ju-"

"Sophie I swear to God if you don't shut up about breakfast I'll toss you out of this apartment and never let you back in."

She turned to glare at him, and froze. He was _so close_, close enough that if she reached out her hand she could try to tame some of his fly-away bedhead, although she'd probably fail.

"Sophie, this morning when we-"

"Did you mean anything by it?" she suddenly found herself blurting out. She blushed furiously and snapped her mouth shut.

"Did I mean anything by it?" Billy repeated.

"I mean I know how guys think, I've dated a few and I've spent my entire life with a brother who's had his own fair share of girlfriends. And I know how you think, you're a thrill junkie, you spent your natural life stealing and- and killing people at a time when a hard-working kid could've made real money working land. And you spent part of your unnatural one working for a guy my brother and I both hated and then switched with barely even a thought. You can't blame me for questioning your loyalty."

"I'm not like that anymore."

"But how do I know that? How do I know that I'm not reading everything wrong and that you're not just being playful like you always a-"

He grabbed her arm and pulled her in close. She stared at him, her mouth forming a perfect "o" of surprise. "You've only got my word," he murmured, watching her face, "and if that's not enough for you then tell me right now."

She swallowed, her nerves started to get the better of her. He _had _spent days healing her and depleting his own energy to keep her alive when he could've passed her on to her brother or any number of willing people. He'd happily given up his bed, his food and even his clothes to keep her as comfortable as possible, even now she wore one of his shirts and the extra pair of jeans she'd brought on their journey through the Shadowrealm.

So Sophie took a deep breath, lifted her face and looked him straight in the eye. "It's more than enough."

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**I feel a bit evil for that ending...but the chapter was getting pretty long so I had to cut it. Reviewreviewreview!**


	7. Don't Worry

Billy wrapped his arms tight around her waist and pulled her flush against him. Sophie's cheeks heated up and her chest tightened as he smiled at her. He ran his fingers up her spine to cup her face, her eyes widened and he grinned even wider. And it might've been to wipe that stupid smirk off his face, but she wrapped her arms around his neck and yanked his mouth down to hers.

His mouth was warm against hers, and sweet. He seemed a bit surprised for a moment, and stumbled backwards and had to grab a countertop to keep them from falling to the ground. She curled her fingers in his hair-

And the doorbell rang. Billy groaned and stalked out of the kitchen.

Sophie leaned against the counter and pressed her fingertips against her swollen lips. She felt another blush start to climb up her neck just as she heard the front door slam and Billy's hurried footsteps. He stalked into the kitchen and pulled her in close against him again. He pecked her quickly on the lips, and smiled when he saw her pouty expression.

"Come on, there's someone here you need to talk to."

Sophie followed him into the living room and thought for a moment that the young woman before her was Scathach or Aoife, until she noticed her soft, untoned edges and the wild curls to her long red hair. Her heartshaped face was framed by the unruly curls and a pair of simple red glasses rested on her nose.

"Sophie, this is Cerrid, she specializes in your kind of injury."

Cerrid bowed her head. "I was once the goddess of knowledge in Ireland, Scathach and Aoife are my cousins on my father's side. I'll need you to remove your shirt and pants so I can examine the wound. And you," she pointed at Billy, "can leave now."

He rolled his eyes and walked into his bedroom.

Sophie stripped down to her underwear, feeling slightly uncomfortable as the red-haired stranger pressed her fingertips against the wound. She shrieked and Cerrid frowned. She pressed on a section of Sophie's abdomen a few inches away and the pain made her gasp.

Cerrid grimaced, and ran a hand over her face. "It seems the poison is trapped in the wound. Billy said the Shadowrealm you were in was destroyed by a fog that poisoned the creature you found. If it was in aerosol form it doesn't surprise me that some of it got into the wound, and I'm sorry to say his attempts to close it only made the infection worse. Unfortunately I'll have to reopen the wound to drain it."

"Is there no other option?" Sophie whispered, wrapping her arms protectively around her waist.

"It'd kill you if we waited much longer. I know you don't want to go through that again, and I'm sorry to say there's definitely risks, but the only other option is a certain and excruciatingly painful death. You'll have to come to my clinic for the procedure, it'll be done within a couple hours."

"I- I think I need more time to prepare."

"Of course, just know the longer you wait, the greater the damage done to your body. I'll give you until morning, any longer and there could be serious damage to your internal organs," Cerrid slung her bag over her shoulder. "Come in eight o'clock tomorrow morning. Billy knows the way, I've fixed more than enough of his wounds. Don't eat anything after midnight. Until then," she rested a hand on Sophie's shoulder, "don't worry too much. I'll take good care of you."

Cerrid left the apartment.

Sophie slipped her clothes back on and sat down on the couch. Billy poked his head out of the bedroom with his eyes screwed shut. "Are you decent?"

She rolled her eyes. "You can come out."

He sat down next to her and she leaned into him. He wrapped his arms around her and rested his head on hers. "So she told you?"

Sophie nodded. "She's going to cut me open again tomorrow morning."

"You're going to be okay," he murmured.

She nodded but tears started running down her cheeks. "She says there are risks."  
"There are _always _risks. But that doesn't stop people from trying."

"I don't want to die."

He grabbed her face and looked her right in the eye. "No. Don't start thinking like that, you're going to be alright."

"You don't know that."

"Sophie Newman. You not only survived but stopped the goddamn apocalypse! Your brother is the most feared creature in all the realms of all time and as far as I can tell you're ten times stronger than he'll ever be. So you listen here, and you listen good. Some little procedure isn't going to kill you, and I'm damn sure even if Cerrid wanted to kill you you'd find a way to survive it," he brushed her tears away. "Don't worry."


	8. Hallways

**New computer! Yay! No more crappy 2005ish (probably older) IBM Thinkpad, and now I've got an awesome, high-tech, brand spanking new Lenovo Ideapad! Even has a touch screen...but, without further adieu, here is the next chapter. Remember to review!**

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Sophie finally fell asleep and Billy found himself carrying her into his bedroom. He set her down carefully on the bed and tugged the blanket up to her chin and kissed her on the forehead. She mumbled something and flipped onto her stomach to bury her face in the pillow.

Billy slipped out the door and into the hallway. Cerrid sat cross-legged on the floor with a high-tech laptop on her lap. She glanced up at him and snapped it shut, then stood up and slung her bag over her shoulder.

"Do you know what you could've done?" she snapped, suddenly furious. "You know not to mix Shadowrealms, you _know _what can happen! "

"We sent it into a Shadowrealm with no creatures sentient enough to move between Realms, and no reason for anyone to visit it. What did you expect us to do? Just leave it there to suffer?" he hissed back.  
"You think it didn't suffer? It died less than eight hours after you sent it away. That entire Shadowrealm is a _wasteland _because you and your girlfriend were too stupid-"

"How were we supposed to know?!" he growled.

"Who goes into a Shadowrealm without checking it out first?! You should've known it was connected to the Yggdrasil, and you know those areas are under quarantine-"

"What?"

"It's been under quarantine for _weeks _now! We're trying to stop the spread of the poison, it's already taken over half the quarantined areas, and several of the others are barely hanging on. The poison is extremely dangerous and spreads through both water and the air. You're lucky it hasn't reached her lungs or we'd have an epidemic on our hands!"

"Look, no one ever told us-"

"We shouldn't have had to!" she hissed. "You saw what happened to the other Shadowrealms, they're falling to bits and you're telling me you haven't heard about it?"

"Well of course-"

"You're an idiot!" she snapped. She ran her hands through her hair and took deep breaths. "If you'd waited a few more days Sophie would've died, you wouldn't be far behind and everyone who lives anywhere near you would be dying! We'll be lucky if Sophie survives!"

Billy leaned back against the wall as she started pacing. "What are her real chances?"

Cerrid stopped pacing and bit her lower lip. "Luckily we can stop the spread of the poison-"

"Is she going to survive?"

"We caught it relatively early. It appears that her organs aren't too badly affected, one of her kidneys might have some damage but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. The real risk is the procedure itself, cutting her open would mean releasing the poison into the air, and if she breathes any of it in, it could very well kill her."

"What about you?"

Cerrid laughevd. "Look, I appreciate your concern, but I'm a Second Generation. It didn't kill Hel, and it won't kill me. I have to prepare for the morning. I'll be expecting you tomorrow morning," she turned to go, "remind Sophie not to eat after midnight."

He slipped back inside the apartment just as Sophie stumbled out of the bedroom with the coverlet wrapped around her shoulders.

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